Dealer miss deal....give me your thoughts

Ok, so I am at a local card club that I am a member of as of last week. This is only my second game at this place and I really enjoy the place, and their setup.... We are playing in a $40 tournament that had 12 players to start and we are now down to five players, top three places pay.

I'm in a hand with one other guy.... This guy is wild and plays any two cards... Earlier in the night he called my $5,000 all in with K8o, which only left him with about 1500 - 2000 chips. Blinds are 300/600 and I have about 4,000 in front of me, the guy raises 1500 I call with J8s and plan on comitting the rest of my chips on the flop. Flop comes 10 10 K with two spades... I know have four to a flush and this guy has enough chips in his hand ready to call my all in or put me all in depending on what I do.... I push he calls, while the dealer is reaching for the chips to pull them into the pot he accidently knocks 6 cards off the top of the deck and the fall onto the table. They are all face down, however they are spread out enough that they cannot be put back into the deck as the fell. We still have not flipped our cards over yet so the dealer calls the owner over and asked what he should do. The owner said to reshuffle the deck and deal them.... so they do, I lose the hand to an A2o that hit an ace on the river and am a little confused....

Should the dealer have reshuffled the deck or should it have been a dead hand and we got our chips back and moved to the next hand?

Personally I think we should have gotten our chips back and moved on... I've been in this type of situation before in a casino and that is how they delt with it. However it is their house and I wasn't about to argue their ruling.... I'm fine with the fact that I lost the pot... I really don't know what the result would have been if they didn't screw up.

I agree this should have been declared a dead hand and money returned. I think I would have protested and asked for this result before the cards were re-dealt. Too late to do anything about it once you see new cards.

The hand should have definately been dead and the tournament continued. Also the dealer should have been fired or at least suspended.

I played in a live tourney in North Dakota in July, and each new dealer was an adventure. Each one seemed to have their own policy as to how they did things and what they'd allow--not enough consistancy. It was frustrating when a dealer you liked was moved and you knew the one coming was an idiot. Thus, I can empathize.

Let's wait until we receive a comment from Oz about this one.......OZ?

If the betting is all done I'm pretty sure you're suppose to shuffled the cards back into the deck. I'm not sure where my book is though. Doesn't make sense to get your money back and move on. It's not like he's shuffling the muck back in. It's the same odds regardless.

^^^This. I agree. I've played when there was a misdeal called and the hands re-dealt and I've played when the cards were put back in the deck and reshuffled. Anytime there are cards on the board, I have seen the deck reshuffled, the only time it didn't happen this way was when a dealer dropped the cards, some flipped up, others down, and they were scattered all over the board.

In your case, the flop was already dealt, no cards were turned up or mixed in with the board cards, the action had already taken place and it shouldn't matter what card was dealt next, the odds will be the same. Some online rng's shuffle the deck before each street is dealt - your situation really isn't that much different from those rngs.

It's unfortunate that you lost the hand, but if you had won it - would you still be asking this question?

Hope you both at least got comped a free dinner. That sucks. Right call by the owner but that sucks.

grosberger everything is righ? where did you get those information? that are interesting ..

Awesome... Thank you all for the comments and your thoughts.... At the time I was thinking it should have been a dead hand, but I agree with the fact that the flop was already dealt and no other cards (mucked cards) were mixed in the miss-deal, so the re-shuffle was necessary. I would have really loved to have seen what the turn and river would have been without the mishap.
Oh well there is always next week.

Just do a google search for Roberts Rules of Poker. Those are the rules I follow for homes games and know like the back of my hand.

or buy the book, the one I have is paperback and is only 64 pages long.

mini brag: I won that book and first place for like $700 in a MTT that Robert Ciaffone was running. Apparently he lives fairly close to me here in Michigan.

LOL - my fellow rules nits have beaten me to it

First off, the hands definitely aren't dead, and ruling them such would be an epic awful decision. See this post: When is a hand dead?

Aside from that, what Grossberger has posted is accurate. This is the most important part:

17. If the deck stub gets fouled for some reason, such as the dealer believing the deal is over and dropping the deck, the deal must still be played out, and the deck reconstituted in as fair a way as possible.

If they've fallen in such a way that it's impossible to put them back in their correct order then reshuffling what's left of the deck is the correct decision. Remember that the cards were going to be random anyway - sometimes the reshuffle will mean you'll lose a hand you'd otherwise have won, and sometimes it means you'll win a hand you'd otherwise have lost so it all comes out in the wash and is the fairest way of doing it.

Also, for those suggesting the dealer be fired / shot / drawn and quartered / whatever, I'm assuming y'all never make any mistakes in your jobs and, moreover, you always cap your cards, put your blinds and antes out without prompting, never act out of turn and never comment on a hand you're not taking part in while you're at the table?

Oh snap.. What yall got to say to that?.. I dont have shit to say because i feel pwned already

Tell em OZ

I was originally going to say that I felt it should have been a dead hand, but after reading some of the points others made, I have to agree that reshuffeling is the best option. They are the same odds either way.

Ok the hand should be declared dead, but fired or suspended? Damn man thats harsh, it was a mistake. He did not steal money from the casino or something.

we used to call it a dead hand when i played at the bar yrs. ago, but then again, we were all drunk & made our own rules,,lol, guess i just learned something new,,, Thanks Grossberger.................... buck

Um, no. It really, really shouldn't be declared dead - see above.

Obviously agree with your sentiments on firing or suspesion though

Now after thinking about this I do have a question to OP did the dealer set the cards down on the table? Because the cards should remain in his hand until he is done dealing the river. Now that would be a mistake if he set the cards down and knocked them over. Am I wrong Oz? I have yet to be in a poker room that the dealer does not hold the deck the entire time until the river is dealt, I have never seen a dealer put the deck on the table until the river.

That's correct - in theory the deck stub should remain in the dealer's hand until after the river is dealt.

Yes, he kept all of the cards that did not fall off the deck in his hand. So would that mean the cards that did fall should have been put into the muck or no?

Same for you Oz... the cards that fell...should they have been put into the muck?

Nope, they shouldn't be mucked. The rule says the deck should be reconstituted "in as fair a manner as possible" and that can't be done if those cards are mucked.

I never really thought about this as I don't play live. I do think the house should have given you both some type of comp.

I agree the hand should have been dead, but to fire or suspend dealer! That seems a little extreme to me. He made a mistake, dead hand, the problem lies with the pit boss ruling or tournament director.

Rules state it shouldn't be dead so i don't understand why people are arguing the rule on that he even pulled up the rule for you guys.

Crummy where in Ohio are you and what card room were you in???

I know this is going to sound strange to people who don't play live, but a situation like this really isn't that big of a deal.

Absolutely, as dealers we do our level best to make the game run as quickly, smoothly and fairly as possible. But mistakes will happen from time to time, and as long as the solutions to them are consistent then we all just get on with life.

This is really the equivalent to, say, getting disconnected while you're playing online. Would it happen in a perfect world? No. But there are protections and procedures in place for it, it's treated the same way for everyone and afterwards you just pick up where you left off.

Awesome... Thanks Oz!

I wouldn't go that far, even if it were a situation where it had to be considered a "dead hand".

To state, I'm not dissing the card club because I love to play there and am going back, however I'll PM you the name of the club.

most of the casinos i play at they would have restarted the hand and split the pot allthough the dealer dont sound so pro to drop the pack lol

Didn't the player with A rag have the better hand? How do you know you would have won the pot if the dealer didn't knock the cards over?

When a situation usually happens where I play, the dealer reshuffles the cards in the deck. This is also done if the Delaer reveals the turn or river card before betting was completed.

I agree though unfortunate, the solution was accurate.

I can't help but compare the situation to the fact that when we play on the Full Tilt site, we endure a similar situation with every hand we play. What I mean by this is the fact that on Full Tilt the cards are continuously shuffled during the course of the hand, on every hand. So basically if you wait 5 seconds or 6 seconds to call the post flop bet, the turn card will be a different card.

Freaky but true.

Well then most of the casinos you play in are not playing by the rules!!!

^ this.

Of course, one of the "fun" (using the term very loosely here) things about poker is there is no one hard and fast set of rules for the game. Even given that though, splitting the pot and restarting the hand is a pretty horrible decision in this situation, I'd be fascinated to hear the reasoning behind it...

After the flop I was ahead.... something like 56% to 44%. I don't know if I would have won or not, but there was a chance, just as there was after the reshuffle.... Just didn't fall my way.